WORRYING about weight problems has become one of the great obsessions of modern times - but staff at an animal rescue home have every reason to be counting their residents' calories.

Ten fat cats at the Blue Cross animal adoption centre, at Topcliffe, near Thirsk, North Yorkshire, have been put on strict diets after becoming so overweight they couldn't get through the cat flap.

Among the obese moggies are Bunty, who is so enormous she cannot be spayed, and Lou, who is incapable of climbing on to shelves in the cat pens.

Most of the pets were handed in to the centre by owners who could no longer care for them - and staff say the weight problems have made it difficult to re-home the cats.

Deputy centre manager Denise Mathers said: "The amount of fat cats that have come here over the past few months is absolutely ridiculous - we've had to put them all on strict calorie-controlled diets in a bid to get them down to a normal weight.

"We don't have an explanation for this strange phenomenon. Perhaps the owners overfed their cats as a substitute for them not being able to give them the attention they craved."

She added: "Apart from not being able to rehome these cats because people want slimmer pets, the extra weight is very bad for the cats' health as it puts a terrible strain on their hearts and little legs."